Tufts reported a decline in the racial diversity of its incoming first-year class, who represent the first wave of students to be admitted after the Supreme Court’s ruling last year to overturn race-based affirmative action in college admissions. 44% of the Class of 2028 identify as students of color, down from 50% last year.
Workers claiming wage theft protested outside the Joyce Cummings Center on Aug. 23 and 28, as incoming first-year students arrived on campus. Throughout the demonstrations, organized by the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, protesters handed out flyers accusing Tufts of hiring contractors who exploit construction workers at Eaton Hall, Blakely Hall and Halligan Hall.
In an effort to make the process of doing laundry on campus more efficient, Tufts has installed a new laundry system in its residence halls that allows students to track and pay for their loads through a mobile app. Over the summer, the university replaced all old laundry machines with new ones from the commercial laundry service provider CSC ServiceWorks,which provides millions of laundry machines to colleges, hotels and other locations throughout North America and Europe.
Kelly Sims Gallagher will serve as the 15th dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the university announced on Thursday, over a year after appointing her interim dean in July 2023. An expert in climate policy who has taught at Fletcher since 2009, Gallagher said she plans to grow the school’s financial position, increase extracurricular opportunities for students and explore new approaches to how Fletcher addresses global challenges. Her appointment as dean is effective Sept. 1.
Colleen M. Ryan will assume the role of vice provost for faculty on July 1, Provost Caroline Genco announced in an email on Thursday. Ryan currently serves as associate vice provost for faculty at Indiana University Bloomington, where she is a professor of Italian and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Gender Studies.
Culminating an 11-year leadership tenure, chairman of the Board of Trustees Peter R. Dolan will step down this November. The board has elected Jeffrey M. Moslow, the current vice chair, as his successor.
Undeterred by rain, families and guests of the Class of 2024 turned out to Tufts’ 168th commencement ceremony on Sunday. After opening remarks by University President Sunil Kumar, students heard from this year’s keynote speaker, Durham University chancellor Fiona Hill. Shortly after the start of the ceremony, around 100 students walked out and assembled outside the event gates, leading chants and demanding that Tufts disclose its financial holdings and divest from Israeli companies.
Nearing the close of his first year in office, University President Sunil Kumar sat down with the Daily on April 29 to discuss all matters Tufts and reflect on the year marked by student activism and the university’s future.
Look back on the highlights of the Class of 2024's time at Tufts.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent bombing and ground invasion in Gaza sparked widespread protests and activist demonstrations on campuses across the country, including at Tufts University. Throughout the last eight months, students have urged Tufts to divest from its Israeli connections and acknowledge a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The following article provides an overview of recent activism on campus.
Professors of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts held their first-ever bargaining session with the university on April 24, seeking a contract that would guarantee wage increases, enhanced research support and more transparent employment policies, among other negotiations. This marks the first time that SMFA professors of the practice have initiated a bargaining agreement since Tufts merged with the SMFA in 2016.
Tufts has begun the search for a new dean of the School of Arts and Sciences to succeed Dean James M. Glaser. Glaser, who has been the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences since 2014 and a Tufts faculty member since 1991, will assume the position of executive vice president and provost at Santa Clara University in July.
This semester, Incorporated, the Delta Chi chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority — a historically Black sorority — opened at Tufts. The chapter currently has just five members and the Zetas will seek new sisters in the fall.
In March, several Tufts students approached the university with intentions of reestablishing the Medford Alpha Epsilon Pi Eta Deuteron fraternity chapter on campus. Tufts denied the request to officially recognize AEPi, and the chapter remains unaffiliated with the university.
Due to budget challenges at the university level, administrators and deans of the Schools of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering have instructed faculty to prepare for budget cutting measures that will aim to address financial challenges forecasted in the fiscal year ahead.
In February, the University of Pennsylvania announced it will begin offering an artificial intelligence major, open for enrollment in fall 2024. The major will be offered through Penn’s School of Engineering. Several other universities have announced AI-specific degree programs in recent years; MIT began offering one in fall 2022 and Carnegie Mellon has had one since fall 2018. Although Tufts computer science students have the option of focusing their studies on AI, Tufts currently does not offer an AI-specific degree program, but that could change in the future, according to Kyongbum Lee, dean of the School of Engineering. When developing new AI-based courses, he hopes to focus on ethics in computing and “how to make AI curriculum more accessible” to all students, rather than just those pursuing math-based degrees.
The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at The Fletcher School held its International Conference on April 18 and 19, featuring guest speakers from universities across the globe, from Harvard University and Boston College to Cairo University and Radboud University.
Bárbara Brizuela, the current dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, will serve as the undergraduate school’s interim dean, as announced by the Office of the Provost on May 7. Brizuela, a professor in Tufts’ Department of Education for 23 years, will continue to serve in her current role while overseeing operations at Tufts’ largest undergraduate school.
Protesters began dismantling the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the Academic Quad Friday night. The encampment, starting on April 7, had stood on the Academic Quad for nearly a month.
The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” has grown, despite the university’s warning on Tuesday that protesters will be considered trespassing if they do not leave the Academic Quad. Now, almost 50 tents and a makeshift barrier built from tables, chairs and other items surround the encampment’s “Apartheid Wall.” Student protesters, who erected the encampment on April 21, have previously vowed to remain on the quad and continuously demanded the university heed calls for Israeli divestment.
